Academic Job Interview Questions

To everyone who posted in this thread - thank you so much for the great advice, which I read and took seriously. I got the job.

You don't specify your field, but in the humanities there are several no-brainers to expect. Note that a job interview at a Research I or II will, in all likelihood, emphasize scholarship more than one at a teaching-intensive college. 1) The "discuss your dissertation/current research project" question. You should be able to answer this clearly and concisely (I was told to aim for three minutes max. to begin with; if the committee has questions, they'll ask them). Remember that your interview committee will almost certainly consist of people who are not in your particular specialty, especially if it's a small department. Be sure that you convey the "so what?" factor--why is your project interesting, how does it contribute to the scholarship, etc. You may be asked to describe your future research plans, so have some idea of what to say. Interviewers from a doctoral institution may have some pretty searching questions here; you should expect that they'll want to know how your work addresses Major Scholar X, etc. 2) Teaching questions. Before you go to the interview, check out the department's website & look at the courses offered. It's a good idea to prep syllabi for different types of courses: a lower-division survey, an upper-division course in your field, a graduate course. (If you like, you can bring sample syllabi to the interview; this always goes over well with us, at least.) Many interviewers like to ask the "dream course" question, and you definitely should be prepared to answer it. Other FAQs include: faced with problem X, how would you solve it; how do you teach (lecture, group work, multimedia classrooms, etc.); which texts do you use and why; on an average day, what would your students do in one of your classes; what assignments do you require and why; discuss your grading policy. Be specific at all times and give examples whenever possible. 3) Questions to ask the committee: again, check the website, and note if the department has anything special going on. Ask about the students, the library, the locale. If you're interviewing at a comprehensive college that has an MA program but emphasizes undergraduate teaching, do not spend all your time asking about the number of grad courses you'll get to teach. Similarly, at this stage in the interview process, it's not kosher to ask about $ (whether salary or travel money), sabbaticals and release time, or the course load (which, incidentally, you should be able to figure out from the website, even if it wasn't listed in the job advertisement). 4) Preparation. Do mock interviews; see if you can get at least one professor to participate, perhaps someone on your dissertation committee. You want to think of the interview as a conversation, not a monologue--learn how to answer questions without "lecturing" or otherwise noodling on. Definitely prep your dissertation spiel ahead of time, as well as your course descriptions. Get your friends to ask you tough questions about your scholarship or teaching.

Why is this anonymous? I think it's perfectly reasonable to not be interested in having a hiring committee be able to connect you up with some miscellaneous online profile. That's probably also why the person didn't put the field in -- in any given field, there can't be that many job interviews going on in the next week or so (since they typically involve a very intense multi-day visit with a public job talk etc). In my subfield, for instance, there are perhaps 3 or 4, and this is a big year for jobs in this specialty. In fact I was even half wondering if the poster was someone I knew or not, though this isn't so likely.

I just got a tenure-track academic job in the social sciences in a research university. I was fortunate that I only had to do one interview, so my thoughts are based on that one talk, on what my fellow grad students told me of their talks, the dozen or so candidates that I've watched interview in my own department, the advice I was given by faculty, my department's (home-made) "academic job market DVD", and the comments I got on my job talk. But I've never served on the hiring committee in my department, and I only actually did one job talk. I think the most useful things you haven't heard yet would be two bits of advice I got from my advisor: 1. Be professorial. Remember, they're looking to evaluate you as a potential colleague, so don't act like a student. Discuss your research and theirs as you would with a colleague. 2. Remember, you're not going there "To get a job." You're going there to meet your colleagues. They will be your colleagues for a long time, whether you get the job or not. You will see them at conferences, read their papers, they will read yours, they will be your journal reviewers and you will be theirs. This is an opportunity to meet people who will be important to your career regardless of the job outcome. So meet them, get to know them, let them get to know you. Enjoy. 2b. Have fun. Ok, this advice kind of irritated me. How the hell are you supposed to have fun when your career is on the line, right? Well if go in the spirit of #2, you will have fun. I had a blast. I really enjoyed the company of the people I met (and of course of the people I already knew). That's not to say it wasn't stressful, it really really was...but still, there was a lot of laughter, and I bet I had a smile on my face 80% of the time. And I think the fact that I was having fun really helped, it made a little more relaxed in each meeting so I could interact more easily (the stress welled up between meetings/events) and I could make some jokes in my talk, and in response to questions, and at lunch. Who doesn't want a funny colleague? Ok, so that was my advisor's most useful advice...Now from my experience and what I know of other people's visits... Next, though everyone has been talking about interviews and interview questions, there probably won't be "an interview." I've never heard of a job candidate being sat down while a person or committee throws questions at them. It makes more sense to think of it as a "visit" than an "interview". You're there so they can get to know you, hear about what you do and get a sense of how you might fit into the department. So go visit with them and show them what you're like. The meetings with members of the committee and other faculty members are really more conversations than interviews. Lots of the things that have been mentioned above will come up, but in a conversational way. This means two things: First, it's a lot less awkward and confrontational than you're probably imagining. Second, it's a conversation, and conversations are between conversation partners. You both get to stear the conversation. So be all means, steer towards your strengths, if you have the presence of mind to do so (I'm not sure I did - it all happens very fast). But they're not just trying to find out about you, they're also talking to you about themselves and the department. Not just at the end "now we've asked you a lot of questions, do you have any questions", but throughout, in a natural/flow sort of way. Like any conversation, it will go back and forth between talking about you and talking about them. Most professors told me about their research, a couple asked me questions about their research. One emailed me ahead of time to let me know he'd want to discuss his research with me. And of course, conversations and visits aren't quite as instrumentally-oriented as interviews. Which means they get "off topic", at lunch we talked about fiction books (one prof and I were reading the same novel -- not at all related to our field) and travel, and lots of other things. Finally, I think no one has mentioned the talk. Practice your talk to death. I think I gave mine about 12 times before it actually counted. Probably about 7 of those times were to an audience and the rest to an empty room. Get anyone you came to come, listen, and comment, and ask questions, and make changes based on each practice. Be especially sure to have people who don't know your research and don't know your area -- remember that most of the people who go watch your talk will fit into those categories, so you want to make sure it makes sense to those people. By the end you should be able to give it barely looking at your notes. Decide ahead of time what questions you want people to ask at the end of your talk, and design it to stear towards those questions. If people at your practice talks ask questions you think are off base or that you just would rather not deal with, figure out what in your talk brought out that question and fix it. But have an answer for that question, and all others, prepared just in case. They will give you water. When you need a second to think, take a drink of water. But small sips only...My bladder was about to burst by the time the question period finished. You may also meet with other people: grad students, deans, undergrads sometimes, real estate agents or related, "Family Services" people, or whatever. These are fairly low-key meetings and I wouldn't worry about them too much. And back to 2b. Have fun! (Seriously, I know it's irritating advice to hear, but I had fun, and all my fellow grad students had fun on their talks. It's fun to go to a nice hotel and nice restaurants and meet all sorts of new people, and tell people who aren't' sick of hearing about it about your research, and have them get excited about it. It's very reinvigorating to have people get excited about your research when you're getting a little tired of it and it all seems very obvious to you. Enjoy!

congrats! that's awesome

This kind of thing varies tremendously by field, I imagine. In my field, you would be expected to have a research program planned, to explain what agencies fund this kind of research and how you would be eligible for said funding, and to give at least a rough idea of what resources you would need to make the research work. There are a couple of good books about this: http://cis.stanford.edu/structure/tomorrowprof.html by Reis (for scientists and engineers) and http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812217780/104-4235018-9950303?v=glance&n=283155 by Heiberger and Vick (for a more general audience). Your advisor/mentor/supervisor should also be a good resource for answering these questions, as they know more about the specifics of your field and your situation than we could ever hope to.

It really would help if we knew your field. (Why is this anonymous? There's no shame in asking for advice about this, and no shame in it being your first real job interview.) Here's a bunch of links, some of which have a mathematics focus. Even if that's not your field, though, some of them might be useful.http://otal.umd.edu/~sies/jobchecklist.html, http://otal.umd.edu/~sies/jobadvice.html, and http://otal.umd.edu/~sies/jobquess.html, all by Mary Corbin Sies, Dept. of American Studies, U. Maryland.http://www.maths.surrey.ac.uk/personal/st/B.Sandstede/professional-development.php at University of Surrey (math-ish)http://www.joma.org/mathDL/4/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=434 (with web resources) in the J. Online Mathematics Appl.http://www.ams.org/notices/199810/comm-hull.pdf (math-ish, see also a http://www.leuschke.org/uploads/InterviewingJobAcademia.pdf on my site, in case you're not an Amer. Math. Soc. member)http://www.ams.org/employment/academic-job-search.html (AMS)http://www.ams.org/employment/job-articles.html (AMS)http://hven.swarthmore.edu/~jensen/couples.html (in case that's relevant to you)http://kahuna.merrimack.edu/~thull/job/jobint.html

I'm surprised that you haven't been coached by your department. Helping you find a job is generally in the department's best interests (having a high job placement percentage does wonders for attracting good graduate students). Go to your graduate coordinator and ask him to put together a mock interview for you with members of your department's hiring committee. At my department we not only get mock interviews, the professors give us written comments on our performance (yes, we have a very good job placement rate).

This isn't a direct answer to your question, but it's some things that someone in your position should learn. You will not get this job unless there's someone in the department who's excited to have you there (ideally a great many people), and for whom you're their top choice or nearly so. In fact, you wouldn't have gotten this far if this weren't the case. So if you don't know already, figure out who your personal champion is. Then tell them everything. What other interviews you have, offers you have, salary, everything. (And ask them what these interviews are like in their department and what you should say.) A key thing to realize is that the people you talk to are your agents, not your adversaries. (Salary negotiations will generally end up between the chairman and the dean -- she's your adversary. If you meet her at all, all you're supposed to say is "I consider teaching very important" and walk around the room while chewing gum simultaneously.) The fact that you don't have to approach any of these meetings adversarially makes the whole process so much more pleasant.